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Talk:Balance Issues
Natures and Demeanors *Should both Natures and Demeanors count for Willpower regain? **On the one hand, it seems to be that your Nature is who you are, deep down, and your Demeanor is the "mask" you wear. The idea that you regain Willpower from following your deepest nature is a logical one. Currently it seems the difference in outlook is whether your "Nature" is the whole of your deepest personality while your "Demeanor" changes on a whim, or if your Nature and Demeanor are two sides of the same coin, something more permanent. **Demeanors count for very little, via the books. It's mostly a landmark to see how you're playing your character, and for the DM to easily see archetypes at once. **Is regaining Willpower via both ways game-breaky? Something about a Dual-Nature merit (4 points-ish) that allows you to take two Natures... I don't think we have that merit, but it was brought up. It's system-changey. **Changelings have Legacies, not Nature and Demeanor, and currently the only Legacy that gives you Willpower back is the one for the Court you're currently in. Changing that would seem to change the entire point of Changelings needing to choose which court they're in at all. **Some rare characters (in the books, anyway) have identical natures/demeanors, such as Alpha/Alpha. It makes them less mechanically viable. **Also, some characters have had Demeanors chosen for them that reflect not any sort of inner desire that would lead to regaining willpower, but as a defense or for some other reason. If Demeanor is supposed to be something more integral to the character, that they regain willpower from, this option goes away. For instance: just because someone keeps their true inner self hidden doesn't give them an Autist nature or mean they'd regain Willpower from hiding things from people. Maybe they really need friends, and have a Follower Nature, but have a hard time opening up because they've been hurt. In this case, in the book rules, Follower is the Nature and Autist is the Demeanor--or maybe Loner--and they only get WP from Follower, in other words, from being part of a group, which is what they need and want and thus leads to character development. ***Fenris: You already get WP back at a rate of one point per meaningful rest in addition to anything else (essentially 1 a day). Getting WP back from Nature/Demeanor (which nobody tracks religiously anyways) is just icing. There shouldn't be a worry about mechanical viability because Nature/Demeanor regains don't happen that often, and are vastly left up to players to track. This isn't something wizards have the time or desire to keep up with with any particular zeal; so just do what you think is true for your character. In the case of a protracted GM'd scene, WP gains have to be approved by that GM anyways, so run your explanation by them if you feel a character should be awarded a point. I believe it's a fairly universal practice that GMs aren't keeping track of each character's Nature/Demeanor/Legacy except when it's dramatically appropriate anyways. ****As for the game-breaking concerns, it's been an unstated allowance thusfar that a character may have a dual demeanor or a dual nature if it fits and is justified by the character application. Furthermore, at the rate we run any kind of scenes that involve WP rolls or WP expenditure, I guarantee that characters are looking at a full pool at the beginning of any such scene most of the time. While I appreciate the forethought on the matter, I don't see this MUSH getting so large that we need to be making sure every player is keeping a scheduled tally of these point expenditures. I'd hope that with our minimal player base, the honor system will hold true. *****Elana: My concern is less system-based and more that characters are being properly represented. Evidently I view the Nature/Demeanor thing as very different than Weaver and Luna do. Weaver says that Jason's Bon Vivant Demeanor is as much part of him as his Rebel Nature; I read the combination to mean that his Rebel Nature seems to others to be a Bon Vivant thing, or that that's how he's rebellious, or whatever. Also, my character's Demeanors are often not anything true to them, and I'm not thinking of Demeanors as part of them, just as an outward thing. To cut through all of that, though: if there's no system benefit to them the way we play, maybe it would better to dump them entirely, and go with just the Personality section on the wiki? Added for the sake of posterity and reference later. Drab262 18:17, January 26, 2010 (UTC)